CPC Site Targeting Announced

ken_b

1:24 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

Cost per click site targeted ads are apparently here now. This should be interesting.

We'd like to announce two changes to site targeting in Google's content network. .... Second, we're introducing a new cost-per-click bidding [adwords.blogspot.com] option so you can now pay per click or per impression.

The announcement is on the Inside Adwords blog, and there is a CPC Site Targeting [webmasterworld.com] thread in the ww Adwords forum.

Hobbs

2:17 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

read the post but:

Any word on its availability to publishers that opted out of CPM site targeted ads?

Content_ed

2:30 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

Not sure I follow why this would be good for publishers. At least for those of us with brick-and-mortar businesses, it seems like an invitation to our competitors to target us.

Hobbs

3:04 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

Nothing new for a businesses, you already stood the chance of displaying competition ads unless you have a limited number of them and can list them all in your filter, in which case you are still safe.

Simply it's much more money for publishers with good enough sites to be targeted, and much less money for others.

The line has been drawn in the sand.

potentialgeek

3:05 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

This whole idea will never make it to my site unless and until I get to screen all the advertisers who want to take over my site's ad space.

Advertisers can block any and every publisher, so why can't publishers block any and every advertiser?

Google just doesn't get it.

"Keep me in the dark, and I'll keep you off my site."

p/g

P.S. The other problem is we can't see who all is advertising on our sites, can we, esp. other countries. Do I want some dodgy foreign company displaying its ads on my site to rip people off?

Hobbs

3:17 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

dodgy foreign company

Honesty is not limited within your borders PG

farmboy

3:24 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

It looks like the term "site targeting" is being replaced by "placement targeting."

Question: If an advertiser Placement Targets a page on my site for a CPC ad, does the ad have to match the page contextually? If, for example, my page is about widgets, could an advertiser target that page with a CPC ad about dog training or will the ad have to relate to widgets?

FarmBoy

Content_ed

3:28 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

Nothing new for a businesses, you already stood the chance of displaying competition ads

The chance, not the certainty, and a very small chance at that. For a competitor to ensure getting displayed on our site now, they'd have to spend an insane amount of money on advertising which would be spread over all of the sites in our area. As to the ad filter, we're already out of space fighting MFA's.

Hobbs

3:42 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

Content_ed: Then nothng but opting out can protect you from being targeted.

Farmboy: My limited understanding is that with site targeting, contextual is not a consideration, yes you will be showing dog training ads, lucky you :-)

Content_ed

3:47 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

Then nothng but opting out can protect you from being targeted.

Does this mean that we are automatically in unless we opt out? We opted out of CPM years ago.

I just wanted to point out it's not as simple as: quality sites will be happy about this and MFA's won't. Much of our widget industry industry is a zero sum game, and competitors would happily pay a multiple premium to advertise on our site. For publishers whose business is selling advertising, it sounds promising, but for publishers who sell widgets as their core business, it's will take serious consideration.

Hobbs

4:03 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

> Does this mean that we are automatically in

Yes, but like you, I have already opted out of site targeted CPM and was wondering if this covers site targeted CPC too, does anyone here know?

farmboy

4:33 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

My limited understanding is that with site targeting, contextual is not a consideration, yes you will be showing dog training ads, lucky you :-)

Hmmm. The following is on the main page of AdSense:

AdSense for content automatically crawls the content of your pages and delivers ads (you can choose both text or image ads) that are relevant to your audience and your site content—ads so well-matched, in fact, that your readers will actually find them useful.

Does anyone know of any text on the AdSense site that advises/warns publishers of how Placement Targeting is an exception to the "ads so well-matched" assurance?

FarmBoy

Hobbs

5:07 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

We do have the precedence of site targeted CPM where contextual was not in the formula, do you think Google will limit each advertiser to only the relevant sites to their keywords in a site targeting interface? Dog training it is Farmboy.

jimbeetle

7:00 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

Heh, you'd think the AdSense folks would do a blog post on this explaining exactly how it's going to work from the publisher's end. No e-mail. No notification when logged into AdSense.

All around great communication.

JBrown

7:12 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

For what it's worth, I'm an advertiser that is looking forward to this. It will be much easier justifying a higher budget for AdSense now that I can target specific, quality sites and pay per click.

As for contextual concerns, I would hope that most advertisers are picking relevant sites. Google's algorithms are nice, but they don't yet match what a discerning human brings to the table.

celgins

7:24 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

I'm also very interested in seeing how Google implements site-targeted CPC ads.

If advertisers are allowed to target sites within a specific niche and create ad-copy that doesn't pertain to that niche -- we will see a lot of upset publishers.

If advertisers are restricted... (not sure how they can be) ...to creating ad-copy that is relevant to a particular site, some publishers will be happy.

This topic has been a favorite of EFV's for a while. Wonder where he is these days?

farmboy

7:36 pm on Nov 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

For what it's worth, I'm an advertiser that is looking forward to this. It will be much easier justifying a higher budget for AdSense now that I can target specific, quality sites and pay per click.

As a publisher I noticed that sometimes when I pick a Referral ad and put it on my site, I might discover a few days later by chance that the ad and/or advertiser is no longer available. There is no notice to me from AdSense.

I wonder if things will work the same way from the advertiser's perspective with this specific Placement Targeting. I can imagine some advertisers might design particular ads and landing pages just to appear on a specific page on a publisher's site. Will Google notify the advertiser if the publisher removes AdSense from the page or changes the page?

FarmBoy

AdSenseAdvisor

2:38 am on Nov 9, 2007 (gmt 0)

To answer some of your questions so far...

It looks like the term "site targeting" is being replaced by "placement targeting."

First of all, to clarify the terminology, we are rebranding "site targeting" as "placement targeting," for the reasons described in this blog post [adwords.blogspot.com]:

When site targeting was first introduced two years ago, advertisers could search for specific URLs or topics to find individual sites in the Google content network and run their image and text ads on these sites. Over time, we've introduced other features ... Because of these new changes, we've changed the name from site targeting to placement targeting. The term "placement" can be used to refer to any site or subsection of a site that you choose to target.

I'm an advertiser that is looking forward to this. It will be much easier justifying a higher budget for AdSense now that I can target specific, quality sites and pay per click.

That's what we're hoping to hear. :) We've introduced this new feature after extensive beta testing in response to advertiser requests. With this greater flexibility and control, we expect more advertisers will target publisher sites. This may lead to increased competition in the auction and higher revenues for publishers, and while things may not change overnight, we expect this to lead to better overall monetization for publishers.

My limited understanding is that with site targeting, contextual is not a consideration

As with CPM placement targeting, there is the chance that non-contextually relevant CPC placement targeted ads may appear on your site. As always, you're welcome to add these ads' URLs to your filter list to prevent them from being displayed. However, keep in mind that those advertisers are likely targeting other aspects of your site or audience, and the ads may still perform very well.

I have already opted out of site targeted CPM and was wondering if this covers site targeted CPC too

Publishers are currently only able to opt into or out of all placement-targeted ads.

-ASA

farmboy

2:55 am on Nov 9, 2007 (gmt 0)

For what it's worth, I'm an advertiser that is looking forward to this.

As an advertiser, maybe you can answer this question.

Suppose I have your ads blocked via my competitive filter. You decide you want to target a particular ad spot on my site and take the appropriate steps. Does Google tell you that you're blocked/filtered?

FarmBoy

RonS

4:25 am on Nov 9, 2007 (gmt 0)

What an opportunity.

Create an ad that nobody will click on ("Lawrence Welk ringtones, just $4.95"), and put it on all of your competitor's sites!

Make 300 landing page domains so they can't filter all of them!

Woo hoo!

[edited by: RonS at 4:26 am (utc) on Nov. 9, 2007]

Hobbs

7:25 am on Nov 9, 2007 (gmt 0)

ASA:

Publishers are currently only able to opt into or out of all placement-targeted ads

Thanks ASA, But this is very bad news indeed, as a publisher I would like to give your new CPC targeting a chance, while I've opted out of CPM because I know it failed on my site for years and I have the numbers to show it.

Please untangle your programs, CPM and CPC are very different, we would like to give the new product a chance.

potentialgeek

12:10 pm on Nov 9, 2007 (gmt 0)

netmeg was kind enough to put in a word for adsensers over in the adwords forum on this topic. I added this:

Scurramunga

12:41 pm on Nov 9, 2007 (gmt 0)

This whole idea will never make it to my site unless and until I get to screen all the advertisers who want to take over my site's ad space. Advertisers can block any and every publisher, so why can't publishers block any and every advertiser?

I was thinking pretty much along the same lines.

PowerUp

1:08 pm on Nov 9, 2007 (gmt 0)

What an opportunity.

Create an ad that nobody will click on ("Lawrence Welk ringtones, just $4.95"), and put it on all of your competitor's sites!

Make 300 landing page domains so they can't filter all of them!

Woo hoo!

Yup, my very first thought on how useful this new tool is. My competitors will get unmotivated, and drop out of the business. Or, their advertising revenue drops so much and I'll be able to buy over their site at a fraction of its true value.

If I can think of it, I'm sure my competitors would have thought of this as well.

I can only imagine that revenue for publishers will drop... unless...

If advertiser X chooses to target site widget dot com, then the advertiser is charged a premium, and clicks that come in from widget dot com will be charged at the full premium price and shared with the publisher.

I'm sure the advertiser wouldn't mind paying premium since he's sure that this site will convert for him and hence the reason for targeting this site.

moTi

1:54 pm on Nov 9, 2007 (gmt 0)

If the purpose of your placement-targeted campaign is to increase sales, leads, sign-ups, or other conversion-oriented metrics, you can select CPC bidding and pay when users click on your ads. If you want to maximize impressions and increase brand awareness among your target audience, you can select cost-per-impression (CPM) bidding.

well, if i were an advertiser, i'd do it the other way around to optimize my earnings: pay per click ads for branding and pay per impression ads for clicks.

---

but another question: some time ago, publishers were encouraged to define specific channels including a short description of the site topic so that advertisers can target and bid on each specific channel.

i have done that in such a way that i defined channels for placement, e.g.:

etc. you get the idea. my question now: does this make sense for the advertiser or is this a waste of effort because google automatically identifies the different placements and sections and shows them in the advertiser tool? so does google the work for me or is each publisher asked to define his sections for the system to work properly?

has the channel classification something to do with this placement targeting at all or does google automatically detect the different subsections and ad slots and displays them for the advertiser to bid on?

what can or should publishers do to optimize the placement targeting options for the advertisers?

i'd be glad if an advertiser/publisher or asa/awa would give me some insight.

[edited by: moTi at 2:16 pm (utc) on Nov. 9, 2007]

JBrown

3:35 pm on Nov 9, 2007 (gmt 0)

Suppose I have your ads blocked via my competitive filter. You decide you want to target a particular ad spot on my site and take the appropriate steps. Does Google tell you that you're blocked/filtered?

I don't know. I've only done limited site-targeting so I haven't seen this.

farmboy

3:46 pm on Nov 9, 2007 (gmt 0)

...there is the chance that non-contextually relevant CPC placement targeted ads may appear on your site. As always, you're welcome to add these ads' URLs to your filter list to prevent them from being displayed. However, keep in mind that those advertisers are likely targeting other aspects of your site or audience...

ASA, I agree with the concerns of others on this aspect.

First, to filter out ads, I first have to find them which means visiting the pages of my sites at various times of the day. I need to weigh the opportunity cost of that time against my earnings from AdSense.

Second, and more importantly for what seems to be a lot of publishers, ad URL's can't be filtered if the filter list is already full. And those filter lists are full with MFA URL's because the publishers care about their sites and the user experience.

To take this further, on the home page of AdSense is the following:

AdSense for content automatically crawls the content of your pages and delivers ads (you can choose both text or image ads) that are relevant to your audience and your site content—ads so well-matched, in fact, that your readers will actually find them useful.

That's one of the main attractions of AdSense for me. I'll get relevant ads for my audience, not "shoot the monkey" or similar ads.

Placement targeting is a deviation from that concept. I realize the possibility has always been there with the old site targeting, but an advertiser being able to target a specific ad space on a specific page takes it to a new level.

I would like to have the ability to reject or accept such an ad before it appears. The current filter just isn't an effective tool for the reasons I described above.

CPC Placement has the potential to get some advertisers that previously opted out of the content network to come back, at least on a limited basis.

If publishers are given the tools they need to keep out the people from the bad neighborhoods, this could become a significant boost for AdSense.

The key word is "If"

FarmBoy

[edited by: farmboy at 3:58 pm (utc) on Nov. 9, 2007]

jimbeetle

3:56 pm on Nov 9, 2007 (gmt 0)

First, to filter out ads, I first have to find them which means visiting the pages of my sites at various times of the day. I need to weigh the opportunity cost of that time against my earnings from AdSense. . . . I would like to have the ability to reject or accept such an ad before it appears. The current filter just isn't an effective tool for the reasons I described above.

Yeah, this is my greatest concern. How much time will I have to spend each day tracking down not likely to be clicked ads as opposed to spending a few minutes reviewing proposed ads.

Google really did not look at this from a publiser's perspective. Instead of taking the time to build a publisher-freindly front-end it's going to depend on untold publisher hours to ensure relevancy on the back end.

I'm going to have to pay very close attention to this for the next month or so to determine whether I'll stay opted in.

ken_b

4:01 pm on Nov 9, 2007 (gmt 0)

...there is the chance that non-contextually relevant CPC placement targeted ads may appear on your site.

Huh?

I thought this was a cpc site (placement) targeted contextual ad option.

As far as using the filter goes, that might be fine for sites with only a few pages, but try look at 1,600, or more, pages searching for errant ads..... who has that kind of time?

It might be time to simply opt out of all site targeted ads.

farmboy

6:00 pm on Nov 9, 2007 (gmt 0)

Will the AdSense report indicate whether an impression/click was for CPM vs. CPC?